Axis History Forum

This is an apolitical forum for discussions on the Axis nations and related topics hosted by the Axis History Factbook in cooperation with Christian Ankerstjerne’s Panzerworld and Christoph Awender's WW2 day by day.
Founded in 1999.

At Trieste, the shipyard Cantieri Reuniti dell Adriatico (resulting form a merge in 1930 of the Stabilimento Tecnico and Cantieri Navale Triestino)
=> at least two main slips, at least one of them accommodating a Littorio-sized BB

At Genoa, the shipyard was Ansaldo.
=> at least one slip accomodating a Littorio-sized BB

At Livorno, the company was Odero Terni Orlandi (often refered to as OTO).
This company was also based at La Spezia.
=> at least two Zara-sized slips in Livorno and one in La Spezia

Dili, I think your reference to a "40kt cruiser" is a typo. Did you mean the Capitani Romani class light cruisers(i.e. 4,000 tons cruisers) ?

Bronsky, you wrote :

Brest was also a naval base but had no shipbuilding capability (it did have a repair capability).

Actually, both Dunkerque and Richelieu were built at Brest. They were built in the "bassin du Salou" (numbered 4, 250m long) and fitted out in bassin 9.

Dili, I think your reference to a "40kt cruiser" is a typo. Did you mean the Capitani Romani class light cruisers(i.e. 4,000 tons cruisers) ?

Correct Capitani Romani, i had a blank and was posting in a hurry so the 40kt reference was the easiest my mind found to identify them.

Thanks for added info concerning slips.

I think at Taranto ther were to be build a 400m! slip. A work that didn't saw the light of the day. Do you know if there was another place from Trieste or Genoa that could repair(not build) a Littorio BB?

Dili wrote:Do you know if there was another place from Trieste or Genoa that could repair(not build) a Littorio BB?

Well, it's no hard fact, but just prior to Italy surrender, the main fleet was stationed at La Spezia.
So I would guess that at least one dockyard able to accomodate a Littorio was located here, else basing the fleet here instead of in Genoa would make little sense.

Here is an update of the US Naval shipyards chart.
I added the cruisers and the light carriers and corrected some slight approximations.
The green color code represents the ships under repair which required long-time drydocking, not new constructions.

As previously, the exact organisation is only tentative - I just tried to minimize the number of building slips & drydock required to build this set of ships.
And the late war buildings are not shown, as I focused on the most constrained time period (41 to 43).
So I did not showthe ships laid down after 01/01/1944.

I also miss some data regarding CL-80 & 81, so they are not there.
And my notes say there is at least one more slip at Newport News, but I can't recall why ....

Yards_US_2.jpg

You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

Jon G. wrote:Regarding the floating dock at Malta, it was sunk soon after Italy entered the war.Originally the idea had been to transfer this dock to Alexandria.

The idea didn't last long, though, and the Admiralty lost the best of its two floating docks as a result. I wrote that the Malta dock had been sunk in July, actually the date was 21st June 1940.

From Playfair I, pp.75-76:
"By March 1939 the most pressing question was still the docking of ships, and the Admiralty suggested that the Malta floating dock, which was capable of accomodating the most modern battleship, should be transferred to Alexandria. To this the Commander-in-Chief raised the strongest objections, pointing out the disadvantages of losing the facilities of a flating dock at Malta and rejecting the idea of surrendering altogether the use of Malta as a base. In deferrence to his wishes the Admiralty decided to move the Portsmouth flating dock to Alexandria ... [where] ... it arrived only three weeks before the outbreak of war with Germany. This dock (A.F.D.5) had been built in 1912 ... But the fact that it was only capable of taking vessels up to 31,500 tons, which included Queen Elizabeth and Royal Sovereign Class battleships in a specially lightened condition but not any more modern battleship, was to impose definite limitations on the composition of the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet."

I don't know where to look for the name of the Malta dock, current temperatures being way too high for my poor brain to cope with

AFAIK, the Illustrious was docked at Parlatorio Wharf in January 1941. Next to her was a floating crane, lowered over her flight deck to discourage low-level bombing attacks.

Like Bronsky, I have no idea about the name and capacity of Malta's floating dock. Playfair does not give any details at a glance. There might of course have been other, commercial floating docks at Malta at the time, but frankly I doubt it.

Shipyards of Major and Minor Powers, Plus some Naval Engineering data like engine builders etc. For the big ones only Soviet Union and some Germany,then many minor ones in 1939 : http://astilleros1939.blogspot.com/

I retrieved some old notes I have regarding the facilities available in the French Empire in June 1940.
(sadly it's a text without reference, and I can't remember where I found it, so I cannot guarantee it's 100% accurate).

Bizerte :
Four drydocks : one BB-sized (255m*40m*12m), two cruiser-sied (203m*30m*9.5m) and one smaller (92m*15m*4.4m).

Mers El Kebir :
no drydock (two BB-sized were planned to be built in 1942-44).
Two small drydocks at Oran (civilian harbor)

Alger :
Two drydocks in the civilian harbor (138m*26m*8.5m and 80*22*6)

Dakar :
one drydock, able to accomodate cruisers (198 m long).
One floating drydock evacuated from Bordeaux (??unconfirmed??)
one BB-sized drydock was scheduled, apparently it was never built. It is unclear whether the work had begun before June 1940.

Casablanca :
Four drydocks: two 150m*25m*9m and two smaller (<100m long)

French West Indies :
Fort de France (Martinique) :
One CL-sized drydock at least (Emile Bertin drydocked there in 1943, and no work on the facilities during 1940-43)

French Indochina :
Unkown, but most probably at least one drydock able to accommodate a Tourville-class cruiser

@ Jon :
Regarding the Malta Floating drydock, here is what I found on http://www.worldnavalships.com's forum :

The AFD in Malta was AFD-8 this was originally a German floating dock, taken over by Britain after WW1. A new mid section was built at Chatham in 1924 increasing its capacity to lift 65000 tons. The original German dock left Sheerness on 1 June 1925 in tow of RETORT, RESOLVE, ROYSTERER, ST CLEARS, ST DAY, ST MELLONS. It arrived at Malta on 27 June. The new section left on 1 Aug 1925 in tow of RETORT, RESOLVE, ST CLEARS, ST MELLONS, ST KITTS, arriving 22 Aug. The sections were then joined at Malta. This dock was obviously capable of docking any size of RN battleship. Unfortunately the dock broke apart and sank after near-misses from Italian bombs in late June 1940.

Here again, sadly, I have no idea of the primary sources.

But looking through Hood's logs (on hmshood.com), I found that she had drydock periods at Malta in 1937-38. I've not been able to confirm that it was the AFD 8, but it nonetheless proves the availability of a BB-sized docking facility in Malta by that time.

1937
03–27 February: At Malta. Taken in hand for docking, 03-13 February.
10–30 September: At Malta for dry-docking
06 November–31 December: At Malta (06 November 1937 - 05 January 1938). Taken in hand for docking, 08 November - 16 December
1938
07 May–28 June: At Malta in preparation for the Summer Cruise of the Mediterranean Fleet. Taken in hand for rearmament and docking, 16 May - 22 June
09 November–31 December: At Malta for docking and repairs (09 November 1938 - 10 January 1939).

this may sound silly, but since Canada ended the war with the third largest navy in the World behind USA and Great Britain i will include her building shipyards and ships in WW2

Shipping & Ship Building
After the fall of France in May 1940, it became a priority to enlarge the Allies merchant shipping fleet, to replace ships lost, and to make sure that there were naval escort vessels to guard convoys against German submarines. Britain was highly vulnerable, and North American arms and supplies were a lifeline.

Canada in 1940 had just started to build patrol vessels for the protection of its own coasts, but Britain soon placed orders for 26 ten-thousand-tonne cargo ships and soon after orders for naval escorts and minesweepers. This was just the beginning, as Britain made clear it needed Canada to build as many naval and merchant ships as it possibly could. The practically non-existent Canadian interwar shipbuilding industry - three shipyards employing fewer than 4,000 men - expanded to 90 plants on the East and West Coasts, the Great Lakes and even inland. More than 126,000 men and women were employed.

At its wartime peak in September 1943, the industry was able to deliver the ten-thousand-tonne SS Fort Romaine in a stunning 58 days from the start of construction.

There were 348, ten thousand-ton, merchant ships built in Canada during the war. Large and relatively slow, but reliable and easily adapted to a variety of cargoes, these ships and those who sailed on them ensured the delivery of much of Canada’s war production.

* During 1941, the first of the large 10,000 ton merchant ships were taking an average of 307 days to build (and up to 426 days in one case). One year later, average production time had dropped to 163 days (with one ship being produced in a record 112 days).
* Some 57,000 individuals were employed in merchant shipbuilding and a further 27,000 worked in naval shipbuilding, which included building vessels like destroyers, frigates, corvettes, and minesweepers

But looking through Hood's logs (on hmshood.com), I found that she had drydock periods at Malta in 1937-38. I've not been able to confirm that it was the AFD 8, but it nonetheless proves the availability of a BB-sized docking facility in Malta by that time.

There is a picture of the Hood in the AFD in Malta in 1937, and the AFD had some room to spare looking at the picture.

The picture is on Pg77 plus further pics on Pg181 of Bruce Taylors superb book The Battlecruiser HMS Hood published by Seaforth 2008